Mount Katsuragi

Mount Katsuragi (葛城山), the present Yamato Katsuragi-san (959 m), straddles Gose in Nara Prefecture and Chihaya-Akasaka in southern Osaka Prefecture. The mountain is associated with En no Ozunu, the late-seventh-century ascetic recorded in the Shoku Nihongi as exiled to Oshima in 699 CE, and is regarded as the founding training ground of Shugendo and the Katsuragi 28 ritual stations. The principal kami of the mountain cult is Hitokotonushi-no-Okami, who, according to the Kojiki (712 CE) Book Three, encountered Emperor Yuryaku on Mount Katsuragi dressed in clothes identical to the emperor's own and announced "I am the deity who utters in one word the good and the evil". The mountain holds several Engishiki-listed shrines including the Katsuragi Hitokotonushi Shrine, Takamahiko Shrine, and Takakamo Shrine.